A gruesome discovery Island covered with seal pup carcasses after hunters killed their mothers

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.amherstdaily.com/index.cfm?sid=24503&sc=58

A gruesome discovery
Island covered with seal pup carcasses


SHERRY MARTELL
The Amherst Daily News

FOX HARBOUR - A recent storm surge prevented officials from investigating the death of several seal pups on a secluded island in Wallace Bay.

Fox Harbour resident William Butler discovered a gruesome site last weekend while walking his dog on Oak Island.

“I have nothing against the sealing per se, but I thought it was quite cruel to let the animals starve to death.

“To starve to death while the seagulls are picking your eyes out is awful.”

Butler said the island is littered with dozens of seal pup carcasses that he believes died of starvation after hunters killed their mothers or scared them away.

He feels a seal hunt should not be conducted while pups are still nursing their mothers.

FULL story at link.

[PresidentObama]

1. Gruesome doesn't mean begin to describe this.

Poor little guys!!

[jilln]

2. To starve to death while the seagulls are picking your eyes out is awful

However, he sees nothing wrong with being beaten to death with a stick soon after being born.

What an asshole.

[MADem]

3. I don't think he's an asshole. If he were an asshole he wouldn't have told.

He would have walked on and not said a word to anyone.

I don't particularly like the whole 'beat with a stick' aspect of sealing. I don't really see any need for sealing, but that's MY very personal and admittedly parochial view. I don't live off the animals at all, I have no interest in the practice, and I find it personally distasteful.

People who do, though, likely feel differently. If the seals must be killed for food, I don't think that nursing mothers should be taken, and I think they should find a swifter and more humane way to do it.

[jilln]

4. "I have nothing against the sealing per se"

That makes him an asshole in my book. And the idea that these barbarians live off the seal flesh or furs is bull. A TINY percentage of their income comes from it, and it could be replaced by other means.

It's like saying bullfighters have no other source of income. Boo-fucking hoo.

By the way, I think it's OK to say you don't agree with beating animals without trying to qualify it to sound politically correct. I'm against child abuse too, even if the people practicing it think it's OK and make money off it.

[MADem]

5. Well, some of the sealers aren't frigging bullfighters, they are native peoples who

live traditionally. There's no SAFEWAY to go to and purchase that neat little packet of cleaned chicken breast, all sanitized and divorced from the feathers, head, feet and eyes and so on, if you're living up near the artic circle. We don't "know" that the guy wasn't referring to his fellow Canadians who survive on those seals. In which case, he wouldn't be an asshole. He'd just be a guy who didn't want to see his fellows starving for want of their traditional diet.

People who kill for the fur alone, and for the "fashion" in those frenzied hunts are assholes. But people who kill to eat the meat to subsist are not. What, are they supposed to live on; the arugula they're growing in their little ice greenhouses?

I say take your ire out on the purchasers of the commodity; if there were no demand, there'd be no commercial enterprise--Canada permits this activity only because there's DEMAND and the profit is tremendous:

Canada sold pelts to 11 countries in 2004, with Norway, Germany, Greenland, and China purchasing the largest quantities. Other buying countries were Finland, Denmark, France, Hong Kong, Greece, South Korea, and Russia.<16>

Meat: Asia remains the principal market for seal meat exports.<17> One of Canada's market access priorities for 2002, was to "continue to press Korean authorities to obtain the necessary approvals for the sale of seal meat for human consumption in Korea."<18> Canadian and Korean officials agreed in 2003 on specific Korean import requirements for seal meat.<19> For 2004, only Taiwan and South Korea purchased seal meat from Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_hunting